Mumbai duo Rishabh, Sparsh moves into final of State Senior Snooker and Billiards Championship

Mumbai's Rishabh Thakkar and Sparsh Pherwani worked their way into the final of the Maharashtra State Senior Snooker & Billiards Selection (leg-1) Championship 2018. In a tense and nerve-wracking semi-final contest, Thakkar put up a doughty performance to dash the aspirations of Mukund Bharadia by scraping to a close 4-3 victory in the best-of-7-frame match at the Deccan Gymkhana on Saturday.

In the other semi-final encounter, Pherwani found the going tough initially against Pune's Vignesh Sanghvi. But, the young Mumbai cueist showed great tenacity and a strong fighting spirit as he bounced back, after losing the opening two frames, to carve out a satisfactory 4-2 win to have a crack at becoming the number one ranked snooker player in Maharashtra. Meanwhile, both Thakkar and Bharadia were engaged in a grim battle for supremacy and they shared the first six frames to take the match the distance. In the seventh frame, Thakkar was fully composed and potted steadily to pocket the frame to complete a 21-80, 70-44, 29-77, 56-30, 66-45, 33-65 and 65-28 win to book his place in the final.

Results : Semi-Finals: Sparsh Pherwani (Mumbai) beat Vignesh Shanghvi (Pune) 4-2 (14-74, 69-47, 17-66, 61-42, 60-6, 86(86)-0); Rishabh Kumar (Mumbai) beat Mukund Bharadia (Mumbai) 4-3 (21-80(48), 70-44, 29-77, 56-30, 66-45, 33-65, 65-28).